Giving the pivot teeth

“The U.S. Navy’s first shallow-water littoral combat ship (LCS) is schedule to depart from San Diego for its new home in Singapore on Friday, providing one of the Pentagon’s most visible signs to date that the “pivot” toward Asia is underway. It is only a coincidence, however, that the USS Freedom ships out on the same day sequestration budget cuts are due to kick in across the federal government. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced in 2011 that the new ships would deploy to Singapore”.

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[…] more subtle, smarter tools of national power. The ‘pivot to Asia,’ which has been slow to materialise, was supposed to be emblematic of a new combination of soft and hard power; it was as much about […]